{"id":548589,"date":"2026-04-24T16:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548589\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:49:15","slug":"african-healthcare-workers-and-patients-struggle-to-find-birth-control-after-us-cuts-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548589\/","title":{"rendered":"African healthcare workers and patients struggle to find birth control after US cuts aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Nurse Kephine Ojung\u2019a said she has \u201cseen a lot\u201d after nearly three decades of working in reproductive health care in Kenya\u2019s Kilifi County, on the east African country\u2019s coast. But things got markedly worse for women there in the past year amid sweeping cuts to US aid<\/a> programs.\n <\/p>\n

\n Throughout developing parts of Africa, US funding once provided free birth control, maternity checkups and other reproductive health care via mobile medical clinics \u2013 services that abruptly vanished as the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed funding for family planning.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEach day in Kilifi, we count several unwanted pregnancies,\u201d said Ojung\u2019a, who works for the nonprofit Reproductive Health Network Kenya. The nonprofit has warned that clinics throughout the country have run out of birth control. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen cases that lead to death\u2026 and we are still yet to see more, coming with sepsis, coming with hemorrhage, coming with shock.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The frontline nurse described seeing firsthand the detrimental health impacts of women trying to terminate their own pregnancies by taking high dosages of painkillers, obtaining drugs for abortion without a prescription or medical supervision, or consuming toxic substances like detergent.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over the past six months, CNN has spoken to multiple medical providers and nonprofits in six countries, who described layoffs of health workers, widespread shortages of birth control, and persistent supply chain challenges, particularly in remote areas where women have few options, as factors making the situation worse.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a crisis in family planning medicine that is playing out across the African continent in the wake of aid cuts by the US and other donor nations<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n The International Planned Parenthood Federation estimates that funding cuts have forced nearly 1,400 medical clinics to close around the world, resulting in 9 million people losing access to sexual and reproductive health services in 2025.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, the Trump administration\u2019s budget request<\/a> for fiscal year 2027 proposes even more cuts to global health programs, reducing funding by billions of dollars and specifically eliminating all reproductive health programs. The budget proposal says the White House aims to ensure no funding supports \u201cunfettered access to birth control.\u201d The president\u2019s budget request is not binding, as Congress approves funding, but it is indicative of the administration\u2019s spending priorities.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, president of PAI, a reproductive rights NGO based in Washington, told CNN the proposal\u2019s wording \u201cmakes it very clear that what they\u2019re advancing is a political ideology and not public health evidence,\u201d and that it shows an \u201cincredible abandonment\u201d of decades of bipartisan US commitment to international family planning.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2024, 43% of global family planning aid was funded by the US<\/a>, according to health policy nonprofit KFF. That funding formerly gave 47.6 million women and couples access to modern contraceptives, according to an analysis of the 2024 budget by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization focused on sexual and reproductive health that supports abortion rights. (US policy bars international NGOs that provide abortions, give counseling about abortions or advocate for safe access to abortion from receiving US government funding.)\n <\/p>\n

\n But early last year, the Trump administration froze and then scrapped family planning grants once administered by USAID. Then, in July, Congress rescinded $500 million intended for family planning and reproductive health programs. The US administration also stopped all contributions to the United Nations Population Fund, the UN\u2019s sexual and reproductive health agency, and withheld $9.7 million worth of US-purchased contraceptives in warehouses<\/a> in Belgium rather than delivering them to women overseas.\n <\/p>\n

\n Experts warn that the impact of further spending cuts on women\u2019s lives will be significant in the 41 countries that once received USAID family planning support, many of them in Africa.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n In Mozambique, aid workers reported a 7% increase in recorded teen pregnancies last year in areas where services were scaled back, after US funding cuts to UNFPA and the Global Fund hampered efforts to reach some of the most vulnerable communities.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is a direct correlation between the withdrawal of our assistance and the increased vulnerability of young girls,\u201d Santos Simione, director of the Mozambican Association for Family Development (AMODEFA), told CNN by email. \u201cEvery percentage point of this increase represents girls dropping out of school, the perpetuation of the cycle of poverty, a rise in HIV infections, and an increase in child\/early unions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In Malawi, one of the world\u2019s least developed countries, the local NGO affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation raised the alarm<\/a> late last year about the impacts on women who had lost access to mobile clinic care and contraceptives in 2025.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI waited for the clinic to come,\u201d 24-year-old Ulemu Kapile told the Family Planning Association of Malawi at the time. \u201cThey used to come every month. But after the aid freeze, they never came back, and by the time I realized it, I was already pregnant.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Ulemu<\/p>\n

\n Medical providers and nonprofits working in Africa say US cuts to family planning services have led to deaths, unsafe abortions, hemorrhages and worsening maternity care.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked by CNN about the claims, a US State Department spokesperson said: \u201cThe American people expect their tax dollars to support programs that save lives, advance U.S. interests, and reflect American values, not fund abortion-related activities, left-wing social agendas, or wasteful overseas bureaucracies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The administration\u2019s focus, the spokesperson added, is \u201con implementing life-saving care in global health priority areas, including HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Research shows<\/a>, however, that access to modern contraceptives, and the ability to prevent or space out pregnancies, improves maternal mortality rates, family incomes and babies\u2019 health. What\u2019s more, health providers in several countries told CNN that birth control services are often integrated with other medical work, like HIV-AIDS prevention and obstetrician-gynecologist care, which have also been impacted because of the cuts.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf nothing is done, then there are going to be some dire consequences,\u201d said Patrick Kinemo, the Tanzania country director for an organization called MSI Reproductive Choices, which works in dozens of nations to provide reproductive health care.\n <\/p>\n

\n Tanzania alone is facing a funding gap of around $18.3 million for contraceptives like birth control pills, implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs) this year, according to MSI. Those contraceptives would impact women\u2019s lives for many years beyond 2026, MSI said, but this year alone it would have prevented 1,600 maternal deaths, according to its own analysis.\n <\/p>\n

\n He noted that improved family planning is responsible for a significant reduction in the country\u2019s maternal mortality rate. \u201cWithout these commodities, that could reverse.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Adequate space between pregnancies also lowers infant mortality rates. That is largely because mothers can breastfeed for longer periods of time, which improves child health and nutrition indicators and reduces growth stunting, according to previous research from USAID<\/a>. It also allows women to work, with increased household income helping to improve family health, Kinemo said.\n <\/p>\n

\n As aid cuts limit their options, more women may be forced into taking health-endangering measures. Dr. Bakari Omary, the project coordinator at the Tanzanian reproductive health nonprofit UMATI, told CNN last year: \u201cWe are fearing unsafe abortion, and there has been an increasing number.\u201d In several of the countries in which health workers spoke to CNN \u2013 including Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania \u2013 abortion is severely restricted by law.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Zambia, aid workers said they feared that heavy staffing cuts were negatively impacting the care that young women and soon-to-be-mothers were receiving.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe quality is definitely compromised. You can\u2019t have the same quality with two people working when you had six,\u201d said Amos Mwale, executive director of the Centre for Reproductive Health and Education in Zambia. There are now far fewer midwives in clinics, he said, which means women must wait until they are further on in labor to get care.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pregnant women are \u201cwalking long distances, and then they have to also wait for longer hours than normal if they have to access antenatal services,\u201d Mwale said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Aid workers said countries were struggling to fill the gaps left by the steep funding cuts amid other budget pressures<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n A spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association of Malawi said the country\u2019s national Ministry of Health was supporting its work, but that it could not afford to extend services to the most rural areas. The organization has received some stopgap funding from IPPF to continue its work. But in some areas left without adequate funding, US-backed partners \u201ccompletely shut down the services\u2026 so the women are absolutely desperate,\u201d the spokeswoman said.\n <\/p>\n

\n In fiscal year 2024 \u2013 before Trump came back to office \u2013 US investment in global family planning is estimated to have prevented 17.1 million unintended pregnancies and 34,000 maternal deaths<\/a>, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The US funding also averted an estimated 5.2 million unsafe abortions, it said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Although Congress recently passed more funding<\/a> for global health aid in fiscal year 2026, which includes money for family planning and reproductive health, budget experts told CNN that there will be a yearlong lag time for that money to be spent.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, reproductive health advocates warn that the funding could still be redirected or rescinded, as it was in 2025.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US State Department is still evaluating family planning programs and funding for the 2026 financial year, the spokesperson for the department told CNN in March.\n <\/p>\n

\"Aid<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

\n As the global family planning sector is squeezed, women say they fear losing control of their own reproductive choices.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEverybody is scared of getting pregnant,\u201d said Peace Adizue, a student in Abuja, Nigeria, who used to rely on subsidized birth control. She said that women were worried the unavailability of certain contraceptives meant they would have to change to less reliable methods.\n <\/p>\n

\n Birth control costs have also soared amid aid cuts and contraceptives being out of stock. \u201cI am shocked at the difference in the price,\u201d Adizue said.\n <\/p>\n

\n For service providers, the situation is hard to see. \u201cWhat is currently happening\u2026 sometimes makes me shed tears,\u201d said nurse Ojung\u2019a, in Kenya.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over and over in recent months, her clinic has been forced to turn away women who\u2019ve walked miles hoping for modern medical care or contraception.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cToday, my shelves are empty,\u201d she has had to tell them. \u201cIn most cases we have, in Swahili, hakuna. Hakuna means nothing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nurse Kephine Ojung\u2019a said she has \u201cseen a lot\u201d after nearly three decades of working in reproductive health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-548589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}